Phone Addiction Scientist: Doing This Gives You An Hour Back Every Day! | Dr Sahar Yousef
Episode of The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett · October 15, 2026 · 2 h 14 min
Steven Bartlett and neuroscientist Sahar Yousef discuss phone addiction, tech design that hijacks attention, focus sprints, chronotypes, multitasking costs, and AI's threat to independent thinking.
Summary
Steven Bartlett interviewed Dr. Sahar Yousef, a UC Berkeley cognitive neuroscientist and founder of the Becoming Superhuman Lab, about attention, productivity and the effects of technology on the brain. Yousef argued that there are fundamental "laws of biology" people ignore, that sleep is the foundation of performance, and that technology's default settings are designed by behavioral neuroscientists to maximize engagement rather than productivity. She compared big tech's approach to the food industry's, describing increased stimulation, decreased friction (such as infinite scroll) and decreased satiation, and said her lab found that switching phones to grayscale cut daily phone use by about an hour.
Yousef outlined her "focus sprint" method: blocking time in advance, defining a granular execution list, removing distractions, using a timer, and taking real brain breaks. She distinguished most important tasks (MITs) from least important tasks (LITs), encouraged identifying a long-term "Everest" through a deathbed exercise, and cited a study suggesting nature exposure or doing nothing are better breaks than scrolling. She also discussed creative insight, rumination, and three chronotypes, stating her lab's data put PM-shifted people at about 16% of the population.
Yousef described being repeatedly recruited by tech companies seeking to increase engagement, including an offer at four times her academic salary, and warned of a future "thinking class" as AI and distraction erode critical thinking. Bartlett performed her multitasking exercise, concluding he was about 60% slower when switching tasks, which Yousef attributed to attentional residue. The episode closed with Yousef's answer on becoming luckier by priming the mind with clear goals, and a pointer to free assessments at the Mind, Machine and Meaning Institute.
Chapters
- 0:00
Cold open and Yousef's mission
After a preview of the multitasking test, Yousef described her mission of teaching people how their brains and bodies work best.
- 6:48
Background and the distracted executive
Yousef described her UC Berkeley background, the Becoming Superhuman Lab, and observing a Fortune 10 executive working amid constant interruptions.
- 12:15
Sleep, notifications and default settings
Yousef named sleep as the foundation and argued tech default settings are built for engagement, recommending VIP-only notifications.
- 24:58
Signal versus noise and avoiding discomfort
Bartlett recounted stories about Steve Jobs's focus, and Yousef explained the brain as a monotasking machine that seeks distraction to avoid discomfort.
- 32:47
How big tech hijacks the brain
Yousef compared tech design to the food industry's playbook of stimulation, low friction and low satiation, including variable rewards and infinite scroll.
- 43:46
Reverse neuroscience: grayscale and long-form content
Yousef presented her lab's grayscale findings and urged choosing long-form content, real-world connection and portion control.
- 55:21
The focus sprint and MITs vs LITs
Yousef laid out the focus sprint steps and how to prioritize most important tasks over least important ones.
- 1:04:29
Finding your Everest
Yousef led a deathbed exercise to identify long-term goals, leading to discussion of connection, flow, and marginal gains.
- 1:17:46
Removing distractions, music and timers
Yousef gave advice on noise-cancelling headphones, focus playlists, timers and Parkinson's law.
- 1:25:04
Brain breaks, creativity and rumination
Yousef discussed research on the best kinds of breaks, how insight arises from walking away, and redirecting attention away from rumination.
- 1:36:19
Chronotypes
Yousef explained AM-shifted, PM-shifted and biphasic chronotypes and when to schedule focused work.
- 1:46:38
Tech recruitment and the thinking class
Yousef described recruitment offers from tech firms and her fear that AI and distraction will shrink the class of independent thinkers.
- 1:59:52
The multitasking test
Bartlett completed a writing exercise showing the switch cost of alternating tasks, which Yousef called attentional residue.
- 2:05:52
How to become luckier and closing
Yousef argued luck comes from priming the mind with clear goals, then pointed listeners to free assessments.
Key points
What was said, by whom, with the exact words. Timestamps jump to the moment.
- Sahar Yousef
Yousef argues that technology default settings are designed by neuroscientists working at tech companies to make users hooked.
“These are cognitive neuroscientists, behavioral neuroscientists that work at these companies to get you hooked”
Listen from 17:57 · Persuasive technology and engagement design
- Steven Bartlett
Bartlett admits he is addicted to his phone and feels mild anxiety when it dies.
“And I'm most certainly addicted to my phone. I spend an unbelievable amount of hours with that thing”
- Sahar Yousef
Yousef argues that big tech copied the food industry's playbook for creating addiction to sugar and processed food.
“it is eerily similar to how the food industry got us addicted to sugar and processed food”
Listen from 33:04 · Persuasive technology and engagement design
- Sahar Yousef
Yousef claims feed algorithms withhold the content users will love until they are about to leave, then deliver a 'jackpot'.
“It knows the moment you're about to do that and right before you do that, Hits you with the jackpot”
- Sahar Yousef
Yousef reports that her lab found putting phones in grayscale for three weeks reduced phone use by about an hour a day.
“And we saw, on average, people spent one hour less on their phones every single day”
- Sahar Yousef
Yousef says her lab's research shows focus sprints let people do up to twice as much work with fewer mistakes.
“has allowed people to do up to two times as much as they would otherwise do while also reducing the number of mistakes”
- Sahar Yousef
Yousef recommends identifying one to three most important tasks each day that would make the day a success.
“Your MITs or your most important tasks are the one, two, maximum three things on any given day that you would want to accomplish if you want your day to be a success”
- Sahar Yousef
Yousef advises against wearing noise-cancelling headphones for more than three to four hours a day, recommending them only for focus sprints.
“I don't recommend listening to noise canceling or having noise canceling headphones on for more than three, four hours a day”
- Sahar Yousef
Yousef cites a 2024 Nature paper finding nature exposure was the best break and TikTok-style scrolling the worst.
“It turns out the best kind of break is, in fact, no surprise there, being exposed to nature”
- Sahar Yousef
Yousef argues that repeatedly rehashing traumas strengthens the associated neural networks, and recommends redirecting attention instead.
“we've made it okay to continue to rehash and exhaustively talk about and think about our traumas. When you do that, you're just deepening the damn neural networks”
- Sahar Yousef
Yousef states that her lab's global data puts PM-shifted chronotypes at about 16% of the population.
“According to research from my lab, we're at 16% from what we've gathered around the world”
- Steven Bartlett
Bartlett says he has a rule never to record podcasts before 11 a.m. because his brain was not performing early.
“one of the things we set as a rule where I never ever do podcasts before 11 a.m”
- Sahar Yousef
Yousef recounts that a tech company recruitment offer to work on engagement paid four times her academic salary.
“The compensation for that particular role was four times my annual salary doing public research at that time”
Listen from 1:51:00 · Persuasive technology and engagement design
- Sahar Yousef
Yousef warns, based on meetings with AI leaders, of a future in which a small 'thinking class' runs the world while others are not expected to think.
“there will be a very small subset of the human population that is educated, that has the attention span and the ability to focus such that they can think critically on their own”
- Sahar Yousef
Yousef argues AI is taking thinking away from people because they allow it to.
“AI is taking a lot of the thinking away from us. And I'm using my words quite carefully there. It's taking it away from us because we're letting it”
- Steven Bartlett
Bartlett says he is deliberately resisting letting AI think for him and told a colleague their own reasoning was stronger than their AI-assisted writing.
“I'm actively trying to resist the temptation of allowing AI to think for me”
- Steven Bartlett
Bartlett concludes from the exercise that switching between two task types could cost him around 60% of his productivity.
“So on a daily basis, theoretically, I'm losing potentially 60% of my productivity, theoretically, just by switching between two different types of tasks at once”
Linked moment · 2:05:42Skip to 2:05:42 using a listen link in the info box.
Sahar YousefYousef says the average knowledge worker now wastes over two hours a day bouncing between screens and tasks.
“over two hours a day is the estimated average now for the average knowledge worker just bouncing between screens and different tasks”
- Sahar Yousef
Yousef advocates making scientific attention and digital-dependence assessments freely available to the public.
“I'm extremely passionate about making scientific assessments available to the general public. I think science should be for people, not profits”
People
In the conversation
- Steven BartlettBritish entrepreneur and host of The Diary Of A CEO podcast
- Sahar YousefCognitive neuroscientist at UC Berkeley and founder of the Becoming Superhuman Lab, specializing in productivity and cognitive neuroplasticity
Discussed
- Steve JobsCo-founder of Apple
- Kevin O'LearyCanadian investor and TV personality who previously appeared on the show
- Elon MuskEntrepreneur behind X, xAI and SpaceX, discussed in AI competition
- Jony IveFormer Apple designer involved in Ferrari's electric car
- Rick RubinAmerican record producer and author, a friend of Huberman's
- Daniel KahnemanNobel Prize-winning psychologist cited on quitting decisions
- Bronnie WareHospice nurse who documented the regrets of the dying
- Dave BrailsfordBritish cycling coach known for marginal gains
- Chris HoyBritish Olympic track cyclist
- Jack DorseyTwitter and Square co-founder mentioned as pushed out by investors
- James ClearAuthor of Atomic Habits and habit formation expert
- Barack ObamaFormer president referenced in comparing 2010 midterm conditions
Topics
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From the publisher
Are you trapped in a cycle of digital distraction, and brain fog despite working harder than ever? Dr. Sahar Yousef reveals how to take back control of your attention, stop digital addiction, and unlock your true cognitive potential. Dr. Sahar Yousef is a renowned cognitive neuroscientist, professor at UC Berkeley, and the founder of the Becoming Superhuman Lab. She specializes in cognitive neuroplasticity, human performance, and optimizing the biological operating systems of the brain. Her ground-breaking research focuses on building practical frameworks that help high-performers achieve extreme focus, strategic automaticity, and deep workflow mastery without burning out. Join Steven and Dr Sahar Yousef for the first ever live streamed DOAC Workshop, and apply now at https://doacworkshops.com/. In this episode, she explains: ■ The Attention Trap: Technology platforms are deliberately engineered by behavioral neuroscientists to maximize engagement and exploit your brain's survival wiring rather than support your productivity. ■ The Grayscale Hack: Switching your phone's color to grayscale significantly reduces neurological stimulation and can instantly reclaim hours of your scrolling every single week. ■ The Focus Sprint: Breaking your major goals down into granular execution lists with strict time blocking allows you to leverage anticipatory brain networks and double your output. ■ The Myth of Multitasking: Task-switching creates severe attentional baggage that drains your cognitive energy and makes you up to 60% slower than monotasking. ■ The Power of Boredom: Why allowing your mind to wander is the vital mechanism that activates neural network problem-solving and produces your best creative insights. Chapters 00:00:00 Intro 00:02:27 What's Holding Us Back Today? 00:06:48 Why Should We Listen To You? 00:08:20 What's Stopping Us From Being Productive? 00:12:14 The Productivity Toolkit 00:14:17 Why Is Focus Essential For Your Health? 00:17:34 Does Productivity Soft…
Summary, chapters and key points were generated from the episode transcript on October 25, 2026. Quotes are checked word for word against the transcript.